A new 4-layer antireflective (AR) stack with a low sheet resistance and high transmittance has been developed. The deposited AR stack has a layer construction of 68 nm SiO2/9 nm ZnO:2.3 at.% Al/5 nm Ag/33 nm ZnO:2.3 at.% Al/glass and excellent AR properties, visible transmittance (85.0%), visible reflectance (0.34%) and 0.6% bandwidth ratio (1.87). Its sheet resistance is 23.3 Omega and adjustable from 16 to 30 Omega while maintaining good AR properties. Two ways to improve the chemical and mechanical durability of the AR stack were proposed; one is doping of gold into silver; the other is self-graded over-coating with fluorocarbon layer/binding layer/hydrocarbon polymer layer. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.